A Rant: Verbal Crutches
 

:cuss:

As I grow a little older each day I notice certain things about the general populous.
One thing that has been driving be insane is verbal crutches. These are little phrases people use in everyday conversations that make me want to punch a nun.

Here are a few that I've noticed recently....

1. "The thing is." Why do people feel the need to start a sentence with this particular phrase? I want to know, what is the thing? Tell me the thing! WTF is the THING!!!! Goddammit. That one ranks right up there.

2. "Expessially." You fugging moron. I worked with a guy that had a b.a. and this is how he said Especially.

3. "Irregardless." Say it to my face motherfu*ker. I dares ya. :cuss: The actually added this to the english dictionary a few years ago. (You sound like a moron if you use it FYI).

4. "I seen it." What you seen? You seen it? Who dat? Who dere? It's called english you backwoods possum eater. For Chrissakes. :shake:

5. Double Negatives: "Ain't No" or "There's not no one." It's shit like this that explains why China is taking our place on the super power throne in the next ten years.


This is just a few that really piss me off.

Here, I'll use them all in a sentence for you...

The thing is, I expecially ain't seen no one there irregardless of what you say you seen.


My head just exploded.

Sorry if repost.

my most-hated is "SUPPOSEBLY".

At the end of the day, I get flustrated, all of a sudden. That work for you?

My personal favorite is "excetera."

Dammit! I forgot this one.

People that call a "laptop" a "labtop"

"To be honest..." So, you were basically lying to me before?

How about flusterated?

I get tired of cliche's more than these, phrases like "we dropped the ball" instead tell me what happened exactly instead of that phrase. Work smarter.. not harder uh ok
Don't confuse work with motion
One that I do agree with for anyone who is paid by the hour and just works slowly The amount of work stretches to fill the day.

I don't get all worked up about it but I feel you. This stuff is taught in English starting in 4th grade. Ain't none of it rocket science. ;)

English ain't never done noone no goods, noways.

Axe me what I hate.

I hate when people use the words general populace together

Why can I see the dude in your avi saying this quote? :D

It is what it is.

I've had two advertising reps in recently who used "Expecially". One actually gave a presentation to a decent sized group and she said it repeatedly. Drove me nuts.

I notice that people in the midwest say, "whenever" instead of "when". "Whenever I went to the store last night I saw Joe there." "Whenever I woke up this morning I was late for work."

Warshcloth or washcloth?

Simular instead of similar.

:doh!:


Suck it n00b

visa-versa.

I worked with a lady who use to buther cliche's like no one's business.
take the ball and run with it

take the bull by the horns.

her translation: take the bull by the horns and run with it.

ugh.

I hate it when people say "aks" as in, "Let me aks you a question."

I used to live in St. Louis. People ther said Fark instead of Fork.

"As I was riding along narth farty on my harse, a fark that I had in my sharts stabbed me in the arse." No clue as to why they pronounce it that way.

I also hate it when people "text talk"
That shit can go away right now...lol

I kind of find this one interesting (doesn't bother me). One of my best friends lives in Virginia and when we visit him we usually fly into the Norfolk airport. There you get strange looks if you pronounce the city phonetically, they say Nahfuk.

Having recently relocated to Nebraska, I've noticed the weather people here call Norfolk Nebraska - Norfork. At first I thought they were saying North Fork, but they kept pointing to Norfolk on the map.

I liver in Omaha, that drives me nuts as well. Apparently there's some long ass story to why they call if NORFORK. It was a typo or something.

I lived in Whichita for a while, Kansas refer to the Arkansas river as the Ar-Kansas.

They also call the city of Eldorado

Eldor-AID-O...Hicks.

I hate that people in Missouri say Versailles -- Ver-sales.

Then there's the standard stuff such as 'for all intensive purposes'

Acrosst

Fortuitous as 'lucky'

A continued inability to use the word 'hopefully' correctly.

Someone asks me a question, I answer it, and they respond, "Oh really?"

No, I lied you dumb sob.

Place names with the same spelling have different pronunciation depending on the region. Always have--always will.

Nevada, Missouri (1849) existed before the state of Nevada (1864). Does anyone bitch that they pronounce the state "wrong"?

Dip$*&^ Sharpe disapproves of this thread.

Nothing grates on my nerves more than someone using "Pacific" in the place of "Specific".

What do you do to that liver? Jack Daniels?

Southerners dropping the s on plural things like, 59 cent intead of centSSSSS.

Or 45 mile, intead of milessssss.

huh?


Main Entry: for·tu·itous
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin fortuitus; akin to Latin fort-, fors chance — more at fortune
Date: 1653
1: occurring by chance
2 a: fortunate , lucky <from a cost standpoint, the company's timing is fortuitous — Business Week> b: coming or happening by a lucky chance <belted down the stairs, and there was a fortuitous train — Doris Lessing>

It's MissourEEE, not MissourRUH, goddammit.

The 2nd definition is a modern construct...and not accurate (much like irregardless now being in the dictionary).

Fortuitous just means by chance. It does not mean fortunate, despite the fact that they sound the same.

I got into an argument with my commander... (not the smartest thing I have ever done) and after I conveyed one of my thoughts.... that ****er, who has a ****ing doctorate actually ****ing said "Well that is a MUTE point".. I just sat there with a befuddled look on my face. I wanted to stand up and say listen, you ****ing stupid piece of shit, do you have a remote that turns down the volume of my points. It's ****ing moot you ............ ugh.. sorry about the hostility but this person is supposed to lead me.

I've noticed that I've been saying one lately that annoys even me...and I can't stop myself from saying.

Someone will do something or say something...and I follow up with "I was going to say.........".

Bullshit Mr. Plow. You fuggin' lying ass mutha fugger....YOU ARE SAYING IT, so why is it "I was going to say....." Idiot.

So, does that mean that Pluto is really still a planet?

You guys are missing the most frequent annoyers: "LIKE" and "GO"

So, like, she goes "No way!" and he goes "WAY!". It was like, so annoying so I go "blah, blah, blah..."

It's like driving me crazy.

People talking about their pet peeves or even using the term pet peeve is a pet peeve of mine. How the **** did those two words get put together?

That one really gets me pissed.

I believe that the "Way" statement can more than likely be blamed on Waynes World and not valley girls.

Ok my turn. What about people that over use the word "apperently" (sp?)?

Ohhhh, here's one that bugs the crap out of me.

When someone uses "mines" instead of mine. I have a family member that does that and it makes me want to slap them silly.

Another is when someone pronounces a word like "learned" as "learnt". Herm does that shit in his press conferences.

Word. That one drives me ****ing nuts.

Pretty much the entire Death of the Adverb does it for me.

Dork: "Man, they played real bad."

Me: "Really badly."

Dork: "Huh?"

Me: "'Real bad' is incorrect."

Dork: "Are you sure?"

Me: ":spock:"

Umm...

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexper...pelling/learnt

The only item on the OP list that's actually a verbal crutch is "The thing is". All the others are simply grammar/pronunciation issues.

The thing is, that's one I use too.:D

"Learnt" is common in the UK.

Ummmmm, the people I hear saying this aren't from Britain.

****ing idiots

"I was like", when a high schooler or first year chicks at college repeat it 30234234 times, I start to die a little inside every time I hear it.

Yes, it is an odd one. Hell, I actually used "windscreen" instead of "windshield" the other day.

"Herb" is another one. It is NOT "erb." Know why? IT'S GOT A fuckING 'H' IN IT!

However, when bad grammer becomes habit, It's a little more crutchtastic.

Bad what?

Caught that did ya? :D

The good/well distinction.

It's entirely too easy to screw up yet people never seem to get it right.

Finally, a stupid one that shouldn't bother me but does. People that preface their discussion, especially one based on opinion, by saying "I think"...no shit, you're the one saying it, I know this is what you think.

A pronunciation oddity here in Central PA that I hate is when someone is talking about their COUSIN, they say cousinT. Makes me want to kick a puppy.

God that drives me ****ing nuts, I don't know what the story is behind that nor do I care to learn. Needless to say, I don't pronounce it that way.

Hmmm... not really. The reason it's called a verbal "crutch" is because you rely on it in conversation in lieu of original phrasing or words that actually mean anything, or as filler while formulating the next sentence. "Umm", "like", and "I mean" are all examples of verbal crutches. People with bad grammar or who mispronounce things aren't relying on it; rather, they're saying them out of reinforced ignorance.

At my last job, people would always end emails with "Please advise." For example:

"I found some rotting cabbage in the refrigerator. Please advise."

or

"I weigh 300 lbs and hate life. Please advise."

It got to the point where the emails were completely cryptic and filled with abbreviations and acronyms with no explanation whatsoever or a request that was really something that they should have done for themselves and then they would end it with "Please advise." In hindsight it wasn't so bad, but I still really hate the saying and feel a sting of bitterness each time I see it in an email.

Boy, you must really hate it when people say/write, "Please advice."

Not understanding the difference between "fewer" and "less."

"They got their asses kicked because they had less guys."

FEWER, damn it. Fewer.

I'd also appreciate it if everyone would learn the difference between "infer" and "imply."

This thread is now about almost everything linguistic except verbal crutches....

Yes, we've changed the paradigm.

More to the point on the fewer/less confusion:

You have less chocolate. You have fewer Hershey's Kisses.

Man, you really think outside the box. Big picture.

:shake:

I'm bitter just thinking about it.

I HATE THAT WORD!

And "conflate" can be put in the toilet with it.

When I lived in Central PA the people would say, "How's come?" instead of "How come?"

I'm going to need your address and the times you're most likely to be home.

I had an engineering co-worker that used it all the time. Unfortunately, he pronounced it: "para dig um."

Why?

Think outside the box, man. Look at the big picture.

"with that being said, let me ask you this..."

a drummer in an old band of mine would say that constantly